Embed

Stream:

Download:

Also available on:

Mounseer Nongtongpaw, or the Discoveries of John Bull in a Trip to Paris is a lavishly illustrated children's book in verse which was first published in 1808 by William Godwin's Juvenile Library firm. Based upon a popular late eighteenth-century comic song of the same name by the actor and songwriter Charles Dibdin, the story follows the character John Bull, a symbolic representation of the common Englishman (think "John Q. Public"), on his well-meaning but dunderheaded exploits on a trip to France. Bull never bothered to learn French, and his queries in English to various French characters all elicit the same response: "Monsieur, je n'entend pas," ("Sir, I don't understand you"). Bull's own humorous misunderstanding is his belief that all of France is talking about a man named "Nongtongpaw."

The exhibition opens December 3, 2010 at Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Exploring the life, afterlife, kith and kin of the nineteenth-century radical poet (and Oxford expellee) Percy Bysshe Shelley, the exhibition integrates the unique Pforzheimer materials–-some of which have never before been on public display in the UK--with the cream of the Bodleian's own extensive collections of Shelley-related manuscripts, books, artworks and realia. Some of the exhibition's highlights include, from the Bodleian, Shelley's manuscript notebooks, and an early draft of Frankenstein, the first novel by his (arguably now more famous) second wife, Mary; among the Pforzheimer items are bookends to Shelley's life with his first wife, Harriet: her engagement ring, and her suicide letter. Shelley's Ghost will run in Oxford through March 2011; a version of the exhibition will appear at the New York Public Library in February of 2012.

I thought the animation and production of this video were brilliant!! Well done, Jonathan Blanc.
To take drawings from pen and ink to video is amazing. It is really a gift! Now, we and generations to come can enjoy a book written over 200 years ago!!
I would love to see more endeavors like this. I will keep checking in.
Thanks.